6 Ways To Maintain Testosterone When Dieting

If you’re a regular on this site, you’ll know that one of the best ways to increase testosterone is to burn belly fat. This is because it contains the enzyme aromatase which converts testosterone to two forms of estrogen. That’s not a good thing! And the more estrogen there is to circulate in your body, the more prone to fat storage you are as estrogen is a pro-fat storing hormone. A downward spiral. By burning belly fat, you’ll increase testosterone. One way to burn fat is to restrict caloric intake – so your body burns off more calories than you consume, the obvious being your high GI carbs. Unfortunately, when your body doesn’t receive the calories it’s used to receiving, this can cause it to shut slow down processes that aren’t relative to survival – one of which is testosterone production. Since it’s under a certain amount of stress, the stress hormone, cortisol is also excreted which means it breaks down muscle tissue and this can slow down your metabolism. Here are 6 ways to maintain testosterone when dieting. I hate that word, but it’s used here so I’m going to roll with it.

1. MAKE SURE TO EAT ENOUGH DIETARY FAT AND CHOLESTEROL

The biggest mistake that most guys make when dieting, is that they avoid dietary fat and cholesterol.

Surely, fat is pretty dense in calories, but as a man you should never ever consider a low-fat diet for losing weight…

…That’s because testosterone, the principal male hormone, is a lipid based hormone. Meaning that the formation of the molecule requires cholesterol and fatty acids.

Actually, the final process of testosterone synthesis is the part where your testicular leydig cells convert cholesterol molecules into free testosterone…

…And several studies have shown that low-fat diets can significantly decrease testosterone levels, whereas diets higher in fat increased testosterone (study, study, study, study, study).

As a rule of thumb, you should get at least 30% of your daily calories from dietary fat when cutting (and remember that not all fats are created equal).

 

2. MAKE SURE TO EAT ENOUGH CARBOHYDRATES

 

Nowadays, low-carb diets are very hip and trendy.

And surely, cutting out carbs is a way to lose weight, as long as you’re in a caloric deficit…

…But it’s definitely not the optimal way if you want to preserve muscle mass and testosterone.

You see, multiple studies have shown that when you cut down on carbohydrate consumption, you’re also cutting down on your testosterone production (study, study, study,study).

Here’s a quick description about why carbohydrates are essential for testosterone production:

a) Men who eat a low-carb diet, have significantly higher cortisol levels when compared to men who eat normal-high carb diets (cortisol is the main stress hormone and it tends to lower testosterone production as mentioned above).It’s not exactly sure why this happens, but one theory is, that the body has to synthesize glucose from non-carbohydrate sources (pyruvate, lactate, glycerol, and glucogenic amino acids) when there is no carbohydrates present.The process of generating glucose from non-carbohydrate sources adds more stress to the body, and thus, would lead to increased stress hormone levels, and therefore also lower testosterone levels.b) One of the precursor hormones of testosterone (GnRH) adjusts its pulsation rate according to the glucose levels of the body. When there’s high amount of glucose present, the brain releases more GnRH, and thus your body synthesizes more testosterone. And when there’s low amounts of glucose in the body, the brain releases less GnRH, which slows down testosterone synthesis (study).

As glucose is mainly generated from carbohydrates, it’s quite obvious that low-carb diets also mean low blood glucose levels, which leads to slower release of GnRH, and therefore also lower testosterone.

Bottom line: Low-carb diet’s are not pro-testosterone, at least not in the long run. As a rule of thumb, try to get around 25-35% of your daily calories from starchy carbs when cutting down on calories.

Read more on AnabolicMen.com

I think the key is to ensure you fuel your body post workout, with a form of carbohydrate – say sweet potatoes / bananas or brown rice. We don’t need as many high GI carbs as the Standard American Diet says we do though and as Mark Sisson recommends (author of The Primal Blueprint), bring carb intake down to 150g a day and get most of your carbs from vegetables and fruits. For me, by far the fastest and easiest was to shift belly fat was to go on the low carb diet and it’s easy to maintain. High GI carbs cause your body to store fat unless it’s post intensive workout, so it’s best not to consume high GH carbs at any other times.  Eat plenty of dietary fats for max testosterone production as you read in No.1 above. Eating good fat doesn’t cause your body to store fat – that’s what sugar and high CI carbs does!